Smallwood stifled a dyspeptic grunt. “I heard your daddy killed a few. Them people needed some killing, wouldn’t surprise me. They say he shot a couple niggers, too—probably had it coming. This far south, there weren’t no law cept what you made. But he never killed all them men that people said. He just got the credit, you might say. Like my dad told us, ‘Ed Watson never was so bad as he was painted. But you try to push him, he’d push back, only he’d push harder.’ Watson was always honest with my dad—a fine man to do business with! I heard Dad say that, many and many’s the time.”
Smallwood’s ruined breathing came and went like the slow and shallow sucking of the tide at the shore below. “I believe his foreman was behind most of the trouble. I believe Ed Watson was a pretty good man. There was just too many killed down there, and folks got tired of it.”
Not wanting to impose on him, Lucius asked him if he wanted to go home. “Home to what?” Bill Smallwood grumbled. He leaned forward again, arms on the rail, chin on his clasped fingers, looking out over the silvered glitter of the turning water. Then his laboring harsh rasp came again, in elegy and reminiscence, his arm waving in vague arcs toward the south.
“A few years after your dad died, them Chevelier people was looking to buy the rights to Chatham Bend. The feller livin on there then, he pipes right up, says he would accept some money for the quitclaim. Maybe he sold ’em something that he never owned.
“Cheveliers laid out all them plots and dug all kinds of canals to drain them islands before they seen they was only letting in the tidewater. Pretty stupid, you might say, but developers are still doin that today. Another outfit, Tropical Development, they claimed the rights to Lost Man’s River, got themselves a big write-up in The Miami Herald, big pictures of this paradise they had discovered, royal palms all along the banks and steamships going up and down flying red-white-and-blue flags! Ain’t a steamship on earth could make it into Lost Man’s crost them orster bars, and the royal palms was all gone by that time, they was all dug out for them new tourist boulevards, Naples, Fort Myers.
“When Barron Collier made a harbor there at Everglade, that was the end of our fish business over here. And after the Trail went through a few years later, our Injun trade was pretty well finished, too. Course we blamed everything on Collier and the Depression, but we was already dead by then, just didn’t know it. Nobody except maybe the Injuns ever looked ahead and seen how that cross-Florida highway would be the end of us. That so-called progress was the end of the Everglades, and the end of the Injuns, and the end to all us old-time people, too.
“In ’27, I become a eyewitness to history when the old Orange Blossom Special come a-chuggin into Naples. That was the first train I ever seen. A few years after that, my cousin Andy House give me a auto ride over the Trail to the east coast, right to Miami! Looked like the future of Florida laid out before us, that’s how fast we crossed the state, that’s how shining the world seemed to us poor country fellers! Andy stayed in Miami most of his whole life trying to catch up with that future. Next thing he knew, them Spaniards come swarmin back from Cuba, and they run him out.”
“Used to be some good small pieces of high ground down in these Islands, and E. J. Watson had the biggest one at Chatham Bend. Parks took them pieces from the pioneers and never paid ’em, called them people squatters. Damn tourists was more important to ’em than home people, and they are today. A man can’t hardly build a dock on his own waterfront no more without them nature-lovin sonsabitches comin in here, wavin papers in his face! Want to protect every last varmint in Creation cept us common people!” Bill waved his arm at the mangrove forest which surrounded them in all directions in a wall of green. “Look to you like we’re running short of them damn mangoes? And now our old families are gettin pushed right off this island. Strangers and developers come swarmin in over that causeway, buy us out cheap cause we are poor, and it looks like we just got to set and take it.”
Smallwood’s breath was erratic and too heavy. Abruptly he took Lucius’s pen and reached for the petition, scratched a signature. “Local people would be sad to see ol’ Chatham burn. The Bay families are all behind you, Colonel. Only thing, we don’t much trust your lawyer.”
Lucius kept his expression noncommittal. “Dyer is interested in helping out because he was born there. Says he wants to see the place preserved ‘for sentimental reasons.’ He’s not charging us,” he added.
Smallwood snorted. “You know Dyer?” When Lucius nodded, Smallwood nodded, too. “If he ain’t chargin you, there is a reason, and it ain’t no sentimental reason, neither. Man over here at Parks told me one time that Dyer been snoopin around that Watson Claim since the Park took over back in ’47. Got a dirty finger stuck in every pie in southern Florida, got big shots behind him all the way to Washington, D.C. Miami politicians and state legislators, lawyers and lobbyists for Big Sugar, big development. Them kind ain’t sentimental about anything on God’s earth except more money.
“Us local people got no love for Parks, but it ain’t the Park deserves the blame nor the federal government neither, they’re just doin what they’re told to do by the politicians, and politicians gets their orders from big business. That’s the mistake that is always made by ignorant fellers like Speck Daniels, who hates the Park, hates the government so bad for movin him out of his home territory that he can’t see them ones who are behind it, can’t see who’s spoilin this whole country, or what’s left of it.”
Bill shook his head over the nation’s prospects. “Your attorney is the mouthpiece for big developers on the east coast that fought the comin of the Park for years and years. I’m already seein a few signs that them men might be tryin to get it back. The waste and ruination of this Glades country might be just what them boys want—I believe they might even be behind it! You seen this stuff in the papers lately? You notice who’s runnin down the Park—‘the big dead Park’—to the newspapers and politicians, plantin the idea with the public about the state gettin all that Park land back and sellin it off, supposedly to create jobs and help the taxpayers? Nobody else but the Big Sugar people and Watson Dyer! Get the voters talkin and writin to the papers about them tragical dead Glades out there, get editorial writers snipin back and forth, and pretty soon there’ll be a referendum on the ballot.
“Idea like that would draw plenty of support amongst the voters, cause the great part of ’em ain’t home-born in the first place, they are mostly all invaders from the North, and them retired people hates to see so much real estate rottin away that could be sold off to lower taxes and pay for more conveniences and damn ‘facilities’—more highways and development, more shoppin malls, y’know. Don’t care nothin for our old-time Florida! Nothin at all! Them Yankees are takin over this coast country like them walkin catfish or Australia trees that every hurricane spreads faster and farther out acrost the Glades till pretty soon that wild country back there won’t even look like Florida no more!
“Next thing you know, the federal government will dump the Park back on the state, same as was done with Collier County when the Colliers seen that their swamp empire weren’t payin off. Next, they call in flood control, build some new canals to get more land drained off at public expense while it’s still public land. And finally, once all that’s out of the way, them corporations lean on their pet politicians, advise ’em how state can’t let all that empty land just set there earnin nothin, and how they owe it to the voters to sell it off to folks who know what to do with it, namely big agriculture and big development. Before you know it, the last of that Glades country out there will be drained off for retirement homes and golf courses and malls. Lay concrete and spray poisons over the whole works while they are at it so no damn bugs nor snakes nor lizards can go to pesterin the senior citizens. Yessir, folks, we guarantee our oldsters 100% security and comfort all the way down that sunset trail right smack into the casket! Might not be America no more but it sure is comfy!”
Smallwood spat over the rail, leaning forward in t
ime to watch the dull phlegm falling through the air to vanish into the bright water of the tide. “You just wait and see,” he said. “Ain’t goin to be one bright-eyed bit of life left in south Florida.”
In the rusty sunlight in the screen door entrance at the top of the stair, Andy House appeared with a slow old lady on his arm. They seemed confused as to who was helping whom as they shuffled through the dim and narrow store toward the balcony. More old folks were entering behind them, peering and poking in a beehive hum of gentle converse.
Barging out onto the balcony, Andy announced in a loud voice, “My cousin Bill Smallwood is a fine feller, all right, except one thing: I never could figure what give him the idea that he was irresistible to women.”
“I reckon they’s one or two could resist me now,” Smallwood admitted. “But if my young cousin here keeps speakin up so smart, he might get a whippin.” He didn’t stand up to greet Andy or even look around, but in his distempered manner, he was smiling. He leaned toward Lucius. “Between a blind man and a dying one,” he whispered loudly for his cousin’s benefit, “you might get you a pretty fair scrap.”
Inside the store the old folks, brisk as sparrows, perched on crates and barrels, and elderly voices, crying out more loudly than they knew, carried outside onto the balcony.
“—so Colonel told Parks, ‘If you people set fire to the Watson house, you will have to set fire to a Watson!’ Says he never did find much to live for, but now he’s found somethin he will die for! And you know something? He’ll do it! I fished with Colonel plenty times, I knowed ol’ Colonel good! He’ll do it! So we got to help out on his petition! Don’t want ol’ Colonel goin up in smoke!”
“Hush! He’s outside! Want him to hear you? Colonel never said no such fool thing as that! That’s only your idea! If you ain’t aiming to hush up and behave, I’m taking you home!”
“What we heard was, Colonel took his daddy’s schooner and sold her at Key West, and maybe he took Cox with him, turned him loose. Them two fellers was close to the same age and they might of been partners all along. Don’t seem likely but it makes some sense, cause after that black October day, the ol’ Gladiator weren’t never seen again, nor Les Cox neither.”
“Well, that ain’t the way it come down in our family. Cox snuck back into the Glades, lived with the Injuns, him being part of a Injun himself—least that’s what Walter Alderman always told us, and Walter knew Cox from his days up around Columbia County when he worked for Watson. No tellin who lives back in them rivers, and they ain’t too many has went in there to find out.”
“Oh yes, I fished with Colonel Watson many’s the time! Sweetest person I ever knew—good sense of humor! I never seen him riled in all my life! He liked his whiskey, too, ol’ Colonel did!”
“Still do!” Lucius called cheerily, stepping inside.
The abashed assembly looked shy, but most of the men offered warm smiles, and a few slipped forward to shake his hand. No one seemed surprised to see him, since all had known that Watson’s son was on the Bay since his first hour in Everglade the day before.
Though Andy House had been away for years, he had no trouble identifying voices. “Look here who we got with us today!” He welcomed Lloyd Brown and Owen Carr, Charlie McKinney and two Hamiltons, Hoad Storter and assorted Smallwoods, the Roy Thompsons, Lopezes, and Johnsons, a Demere, Weeks and Honey Daniels, down from Fort Myers on a visit—Lucius was grateful for their smiling wave. Over twenty elders were installed—the last of the last generation whose childhood had been lived in “Mister Watson” ’s shadow.
“Last time so many of our old families got together,” Bill Smallwood said, “was October twenty-fourth of 1910.”
“Come to give another Watson a warm welcome!” one man called. There came a cackle of malevolence, but the others looked relieved when Lucius laughed.
Holding up a copy of Lucius’s History, Andy introduced their honored guest. “As you folks know your old friend Colonel Watson is the famous book author Professor Collins!” He added that Colonel deserved their support in his fight to save his daddy’s house at Chatham Bend, and that he was completing his research for a biography of his father and would welcome reminiscences from his old neighbors.
Doing his best to appear harmless, Lucius offered a self-deprecating smile. He said they should think of E. J. Watson not as “Colonel’s daddy” but only as the subject of a book, and must not worry that they might hurt his feelings.
For a long moment, no one spoke. The few guarded asides were meant for one another. Then talk burst forth like sun through rain and clouds.
“I guess you knew your dad had him a $500 watch, that was a lot of money back in them days. Hunting-case repeater watch, with a thick gold chain that was worth even more! Ever find out what happened to that watch? Ted Smallwood get it? Might be hid down here under this counter right this minute, come to think about it! Ol’ Man Ted tucked so much away, he could never recollect where he had it hid!”
“Yessir, that man was all business. They say Ted’s spirit is what made this country great.”
“Well, come to spirit, I would have to choose Ed Watson, cause he never let nobody stand in the way of progress.”
“If ever’body goes to makin speeches here, we ain’t never going to figure out about that watch. But what we heard, the Sheriff put that evidence in his own pocket for safekeepin.”
“That poor young woman was afraid for her very life, and her children’s life. That poor soul drug her kids under the store, and when they come out, they stunk to high heaven from Old Man Ted’s drowned chickens! The kids was just whimpering like puppies under there, that’s how scared they was, with all the gunfire and them dogs howlin …”
“Was Charlie Boggess in on it or wasn’t he? Some say he sprained his ankle in the storm but hobbled right over anyway, cause he was a feller did not like to miss out. His family claims he took no part, on account of Ted was his best friend, but he must of been of a mixed mind, because the rest of his life, he wouldn’t say about it, one way or the other!”
“Well, my mama come up as a Boggess, and she recalls how Grandpa Charlie told ’em to stay at home that day no matter what. Said they never seen the shooting but they heard it.”
“One day Grandpa Charlie was out on the store porch talkin about old times a mile a minute, and a feller asked him what he recalled about the death of Watson. Well, that old man stopped his rockin and he fell dead quiet. From inside the house all you could hear was that kind of soft croonin from the chickens. But after a while, his old rocker started up, commenced to creakin, and pretty soon his visitor worked him up to the same subject, said, ‘Well, I bet that day was somethin to remember!’ And the creakin stopped, and Boggess clammed right up, same as before. He never answered, not a single word!”
“Well, one man said, ‘Let’s put a live cartridge just in the one gun so’s nobody has to know who shot him.’ But none of them others had no confidence that one bullet would do the job, so they loaded their guns and emptied ’em instead.”
Lucius raised his hand and cleared his throat. “If that story is true, doesn’t that suggest that everything was planned beforehand?”
“Nosir,” Andy House declared, in a stiff silence. “The House family never knew about no such plan.”
“My dad said the shooting never stopped till them guns was empty. A couple of ’em might even of reloaded, shot again.”
“Them men never took a live shell from this place, that’s what Ted Smallwood told me.”
“How did Ted know? He was back there in his house!”
“Well, I seen it, cause I was here! Regular Fourth of July!”
“And I seen you! Your ma was nursin’ you!”
“Them men might of panicked—”
“No sense stirring up all them old lies! Them men weren’t panicky! Had something they had to take care of, that’s all! Didn’t hang back, let other people do the dirty work, like some!”
Hoad Storter said quickly, “Well,
for this part of the country, Mr. Watson’s house was a good big house!”
“We had pictures of it, boat sheds and all! Hurricane of ’35 took the last sheds off the riverbank, cause we have a photo from ’38, when Mac Johnson and his Dorothy was on there, and they ain’t no sign of them outbuildins, nothin but that bare old house and a few coco palms, and the jungle creeping in over them cane fields. Jungle comes back so fast down there, it’s like the tide, you can just set back and watch it come.”
“Dorothy went kind of crazy on the Bend, tryin to burn out them old bloodstains in the front room. Some victim or other, I imagine. Then her brother run off with this young woman, then she run off with a young man, and people laughed at him. So he puts a gun up to his head and dials her number on the telephone. He says real calm, ‘You better hear this, sweetheart.’ And darned if she don’t hear a bang—that was his finish!”
“Yep, Henry Smith’s young “uns had a lot of trouble. And some would say this was because their daddy raised his hand against Ed Watson.”
“Oh what nonsense!”
“We have a historic letter in a box here someplace, came from the Surveyor, Joseph Shands, in 1904. I guess this was when E. J. Watson filed his land claim, because Mr. Shands makes mention of ‘friend Watson,’ which goes to show that important men of that day estimated Mr. Watson as a friend …”
“He was friendly with the governor, too, they say.”
“Yes, he was,” said Lucius, making a note of that Shands letter. “He knew Napoleon Broward in Key West before the Spanish War, when Broward was running contraband arms to Cuba. He talked with Broward about building Glades canals …”
“That why Parks never burned your house, the way they done the shacks of us poor common folks that never knew nobody? Took years to gather boards enough to put ’em up, but Parks didn’t take ten minutes burnin ’em down!”